How to Find Your “One True Voice” by Barbara Joy Beatus
Aug 01, 2011
In honor of National Novel Writing Month, we have a terrific guest blogger! Enjoy some wisdom from writer and yoga instructor, Barbara Joy Beatus, and good luck to everyone who is writing 50,000 for NaNoWriMo. – S. Lipsey
My friend once read a first draft of a novel I wrote and mentioned how it sounded like me. “What do you mean?” I asked her, surprised. But she couldn’t explain it. It was something she just felt. I only understood what she meant after I read a close friend’s novel and felt the same way. There was a texture, a quality, to her writing that sounded like her. Most of the time it was covered up by the voices of the characters, but every so often it would peek out from certain phrases and I’d smile to myself.
Literary critics often herald voice as the distinguishing characteristic of writers. They say things like, “her voice was so unique” or “the plot had problems, but his voice was...
